Academy helps elementary students plan for the future

Ayla Taylor knows she wants to be a teacher when she grows up.

Or an artist. Maybe even a mathematician.

“It's always important to plan,” the 10-year-old fourth-grader from Grant Wood Elementary School said.

That's what Ayla is doing at The Academy Expansion every Monday afternoon - planning for her future.

Now in its fifth year, The Academy Expansion is the elementary school version of The Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success. Both programs focus on academic and cultural lessons for African-American students.

“It was kind of an ‘aha' moment for me,” Executive Director Ruth White said of The Academy Expansion's creation. “Educators and educational research was focusing so much on preschool and the elementary school child, we would probably hedge our bets for success if we started earlier.”

Available to students in third through fifth grades, The Academy Expansion focuses on cultural lessons that teach self-confidence, self-regard and the classroom skills necessary to establish and maintain academic success.

“That cultural piece is so important for young people of color because they don't see it every day,” White said.

Nine-year-old Rose Barreto said it was her mom who first told her about the program.

“I wanted to do it because we get to talk about our heritage,” said Rose, a fourth-grader at St. Ludmila Elementary School.

The Academy Expansion meets at Johnson Elementary School of the Arts, where classes are taught by fourth-grade teacher Charisse Cox. Not every students who attends, however, is from Johnson. This year's 11 participants come from Johnson, Arthur, Polk, Grant Wood, Cedar Valley Christian and St. Ludmila.

The students participate in history lessons, listen to guest speakers, attend field trips and conduct their own research on influential African-Americans of the past and present.

“It's important to learn about them so that we can try to do what they did, and see if it works,” said Aden Abram, 9, a third-grader at Cedar Valley Christian School.

Parent meetings are held once a month in effort to engage and strengthen families.

“We encourage parents to do parents conferences, to speak up on behalf of their children,” White said.

In some cases, she said, the meetings have resulted in positive changes for the parents, with two now attending classes at Kirkwood.

It is the hope that students who participate in The Academy Expansion will participate in The Academy for Scholastic and Personal Success when they are in high school. The program doesn't have a middle school component yet, but White said that is a long-term goal.

“We want to provide the information that students don't get in the traditional school setting,” White said. “It's about providing sparks and levels of encouragement.”